First Steps in Making the Business Case for Sustainability

The Business School at the University of Colorado Denver wants to help you become a change agent for sustainable business. We hope that with the skills and concepts you gain from this specialization that you will help your business reduce its social and environmental impact. Being a change agent is hard. It takes courage and passion and knowledge. To implement change also requires being able to make the case for that change in terms that people in your company or organization respond to and understand.
After completing the specialization, you will be able to:
* Discuss the threats and opportunities that major global trends such as climate change present to businesses;
* Identify ways a company can improve its environmental and social performance;
* Evaluate and compare companies’ sustainability activities and products;
* Develop a business case for implementing sustainability investments;
* Identify key criteria of green businesses and product design;
* Be a change agent in your organization;
* Understand emerging topics in sustainable business, including those in the public policy space.
We're very excited about offering this MOOC specialization and hope it gives you the first step toward learning about and taking action to make the places you work and the products you buy more sustainable.
Sustainable business changes daily with new products, innovations and ideas, so you will be important in keeping the class current. We look forward to learning from you as you take this green journey!
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From the lesson

Introduction to Change and Change Agents

Welcome to the first class of Become a Sustainable Business Change Agent.
This week we introduce you to several people who are making changes and talk about the class and the entire specialization. We also begin to think about what type of changes you should look for at the start of your change agent career. Finally, we discuss what a good proposal has to do to be approved. The proposal has to convince decision-makers that your change helps the company or organization. So you need to make sure that the right people support your idea, that the right person receives it and that you have made a sound case for the sustainability change you are proposing.
During the next classes we will help you learn the tools to put together a powerful proposal and to identify the key people who will influence your idea being implemented.
We hope by the end of this specialization you will have a proposal for a change in your company, or have the tools so when that opportunity arises you can be an agent of positive change.